The Past and the Pending
by The Crushinator
Summary: Final draft. A story by Merle, about growing up with Van and about getting to know Hitomi. A love story.


_loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love._

-The Shins, "The Past and the Pending"

When I was little there was a war between Fanelia and Deadalus. I don't remember how old I was, but I do know that my family used to live on the border, in a village called Irini. I think my mom had pink hair, like me, and I had an older sister who used to work on the trading route. I don't remember what my dad did. Maybe he carved trinkets and sold them at market. Maybe he was a farmer or a hunter. Maybe he made furniture. I do remember that there used to be an amazing market in that village on the border. Last week, I read in a book that Deadalus would sell clothes, food and strange metal tools, Fanelia had a trade in dyes and energists and stuff you could use to farm anything out of any kind of soil. Every kind of person went to market and there was no one who would sneer at us for being cats, because half of us were beasts anyway. At night we would eat the things he brought home from the forest and then we would tell stories and clean house and look at the stars. I think I was happy.

My daddy gave me a pink nail file necklace he got from the market one day. I still have it. It's all that's left of them. Don't worry, though. I miss them, but I'm not sad because I don't remember them really well. Just sometimes I wonder what they were like. That's all.

This is what I remember: there was a fire. My mom picked me up and said, Merle, Merle, we have to go, come on, and I said that I needed my doll and mom said to leave her behind because there wasn't time. I asked her where daddy was and she said that he wouldn't be coming home and I remember us crying, me and her. My sister said something about giants fighting and then the sky fell down on top of us.

I woke up and it was day. I wasn't in my house; my house was gone. I was being taken somewhere. This human was carrying me. He smelled strange, like animal skins and that awful sweat humans have sometimes. He had a big black beard. I wanted to go home, and he said that I didn't have a home anymore and would I like to come and live in the palace in Fanelia. I said no, I wanted my mom and dad and he started crying. I didn't understand.

That was the father of the boy I was going to marry. He died a month later.

A few years ago, before the war, I was reading a book about the history of Fanelia, and it mentioned the war between Fanelia and Deadalus. It was a border dispute. My village, Irini, was in Deadalus when I was born. Now it's in Fanelia. It's a lot smaller now, but at least it's growing. Sometimes I wonder why so many people had to die so Fanelia could claim that little patch of land, but I guess that it must have happened for a reason. The King cried, after all.

I won't forget it.

* * *

When we got to Fanelia I was given a room of my own in the palace and a nursemaid who would make sure I didn't get into trouble. I was told that if I needed anything, all I had to do was ask, but I needed my family and I couldn't ask for that. The nursemaid was nice, and she gave me sweets when I was good, but she wasn't my mom. I was lonely for a long time.

When I was three, my nursemaid got really busy and started leaving me somewhere during the day. A lot of the kids who lived in the palace, daughters and sons of servants and the council members, used to go to a sort of school together run by this really stern man named Mr. Gravius. Everyone knew each other and got along really well, except this one boy. He just didn't talk to the other kids. They didn't talk to him either. Sometimes I thought they were afraid of him. I didn't know why, because I was alone too and I got along with everyone.

Except one person. He was new, too. He was the son of one of the councilmen, and he said that I shouldn't be there because I was a beast and I wasn't smart enough to play with them. He said that one day I'd hurt them for no reason because beasts were vicious, that he'd seen it before. I'd been there longer than him so I wasn't scared at first. But then he pushed me and spat on me and I started crying. He was bigger than the other kids, maybe he was seven or eight or I don't know, but the other kids listened to him and even my friend Allie ran away to play with him instead of me. Maybe they were scared of him. Maybe after what he said they were scared of me.

After I finished crying, I got really mad. I ran up to him and tried to claw him until he said he was sorry. He started screaming for Mr. Gravius and Mr. Gravius pulled me off him and slapped me and sent me to be disciplined by the washer-woman. I saw her whip a kid once with a hot cloth. I tried to tell him what the mean boy had said to me, but Mr. Gravius wouldn't listen, he just kept saying that violence was unacceptable and that I was a shame to my people. I thought that I was going to die, that the washer-woman was going to make soap out of me and that my body would be stuffed and put on display as a warning to all the other kids. I couldn't even cry, I was so scared.

But then the boy who didn't play with anyone walked up to Mr. Gravius and said that he had been watching, and Mr. Gravius went quiet. He said that it wasn't my fault, that the big boy said nasty things about me and pushed me down and made all the other kids not play with me and that if he ever hit another kid again he would be telling his brother, who was going to be King. Mr. Gravius apologized to me and sent the big boy to the washer-woman instead and I decided that this was the boy I was going to marry.

After that we were always playing together. I didn't need anyone else and neither did he. One day we climbed to the top of the tree that grew over the castle and watched dragons fly outside the city and it was beautiful. I kissed him and he said stop it but I was happy.

One day he told me he had wings and I said I didn't believe him. He said, you don't? and I said no, nobody has wings except birds and dragons. He said he was a dragon person and that's why he had wings and I said nu uh, prove it and he said he would. So we climbed up on the roof and he took off his shirt and it looked like he was going to jump! I got scared and I said I changed my mind. He said I was the one who wanted to see it but I was still so scared. If he died I wouldn't have anybody. But then he jumped and...

...oh his wings were so beautiful.

He couldn't fly yet. He fell. But then his brother ran up and his mom too and his mom flew like a bird, a wonderful bird, and caught him. He didn't tell me what she said to him but after that he wouldn't show his wings even to me.

His mom used to laugh at me following him around all the time. She asked me why I did it and I said that it was because one day I was going to marry him. She didn't make fun of me, though. She got really grave and she said that I could be his attendant if I wanted, that she'd make arrangements for me. I didn't know her for very long but she was always so nice to me. It was her who told me that outsiders like her (like me) were the ones who could see things that others couldn't. She made me feel special.

I remember before his brother went to fight the dragon that we were playing knight and dragon and I had to be the dragon so I was acting really fierce. We got to the part where he was supposed to kill me and take my energist. I was being a really good dragon. I was roaring and clawing at the air and rolling around on the ground and making the servants who were watching us laugh. But when he was supposed to kill me he said that he didn't want to, that I should just give him my energist and then we could be friends. I said well I don't see why not. I don't think the servants understood but they didn't matter. We understood.

When his brother died I figured out that the boy I was going to marry was going to be King. I asked him if he was really going to be King and he told me to shut up, that his brother was going to come back and we didn't talk for a week. Then his mother left to go looking for his brother and she never came back. She never came back. Her son was crying and she still never came back. He was only five years old. I hated her so much for what she did. I still hate her. She used to make me feel special, but I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her for leaving us behind.

After that, it was just him and me. Balgus took over and tried to be his father. Even though he loved Balgus he still wasn't his mom or dad or his brother. I understood. I think that's why he still talked to me, even when I was being annoying on purpose. I was the only person he knew who really understood.

So the boy I was going to marry changed. He talked less to everyone except me. His temper got shorter and he became discouraged more easily. I was careful as I could not to upset him when he was already so touchy, but even I make mistakes sometimes. One day I saw him practicing with a sword and I asked him what he was doing and he said practicing to kill dragons. I asked him why he wanted to kill a dragon, didn't he like dragons? He got really mad at me. He yelled at me. He said he didn't want to. He asked me why I had to say that, couldn't I see that he was trying really hard to be a good and strong king? He'd never yelled at me before. I started crying and ran away.

That night I turned eight. He was alredy ten since his birthday was in White. My birthday is at the end of Orange, so it was a very warm night with lots of stars. Even though the sky was so pretty, I sat on the roof and and cried because the boy I was going to marry hated me now and I was all alone. I thought I would die right there. I remembered or made up how me and my family would spend time together at night and how wonderful it was. Then I couldn't remember what my sister looked like anymore and I cried again. After a while I heard someone coming towards me and I turned around and it was the boy I was going to marry. He said hello and I said do you hate me now? and he said of course not. Then he sat next to me and said that he was sorry, that he wouldn't ever do that to me again.

We talked about a lot of things that night. He asked me if I would always be his best friend and I felt my heart break a little and I said yes, always. I'll always be by your side. I don't think he understood but he smiled and said thank you. Then we watched the Mystic Moon rise. It was beautiful. Like his wings.

* * *

When I was thirteen and he was fifteen he went off to fight the dragon and when he came back she was with him. That girl from the Mystic Moon. I didn't like the way she was sitting next to him and I made sure she knew that he was mine right in front of everyone. The people of Fanelia were laughing at us and I had to bow and back away when the samurai came to congratulate him but I was sure she understood and I didn't care what anyone thought. He was mine and I was his. It was as simple as that. I told her so later.

And then the war started. I didn't know what would happen between them while I was gone, while I was hiding with the other refugees outside the capital or in Arzas, but I knew that I would have to find him or it would be something bad. I knew, because I'm an outsider and I can see things that others can't. So I left everyone and ran in the direction of the light I saw the night Fanelia burned.

When I found him I was sick from the plants in the forest. He nursed me back to health and gave me his handkerchief which he turned into bandage. But then he went to her.

This was how it was going to be for a very long time.

I think I knew the boy I was going to marry was in love with someone else when we arrived in Asturia. She didn't love him like he loved her but it was still there. I tried to keep her away from him but they found ways to be together without me and it started to be him and her and me instead of just him and me.

I didn't hate her. I tried, really I did, but I couldn't after a while. She was my first girl friend since Allie left me when I was three. She was nice. We would play games and make fun of each other like I couldn't make fun of him. Sometimes I would tell her things that were obvious and she would look at me like I'd just changed her whole world. She was sort of dense that way. She got better at it, though, even if she could be melodramatic about the whole thing. She was passionate in her feelings and she could take care of herself and she saved him more times than I can count. She went to the World of the Dead for him. She laughed at him when I wouldn't and he gave her his smile. I could see why he loved her, even if he hadn't figured it out yet. Even if she hadn't either and he broke his heart believing she loved someone else. Even if he showed his wings for her sake and not mine. But still I didn't hate her.

When his brother came back from the dead, when he left his allies and came to Asturia, he didn't say anything to anybody. Not even me. Not even her. She was angry and hurt but I think for the first time she understood him more than I did, even when he snapped at her. And she did something I couldn't. She understood Folken, too.

When she left, so did the boy I was going to marry. Not physically, not like she did, but in his mind, in his heart. The others didn't notice or care, but I did. I know she would have, too.

I found him on the roof of the barn where we kept Escaflowne and I talked to him. I told him he loved her and he said no but I knew he was lying, because I can see things that others can't. I think he might have been lying for me. So I did the only thing I could do. I said that she loved him too. I said that she would come back to him. He looked at the sky, at where she's from, with more hope than he'd had since Fanelia burned and I held him close.

I knew then that I would never marry him. But I didn't cry.

And she did come back. I was right. He went to get her. But it was just her who came back to the capital in a borrowed Cesarian airship. She told me that he stayed to fight with Escaflowne and I could see her faith in him more strongly than everyone, even me. I didn't think anyone could believe in him more than I did. And that night, when the white light over the sea turned night into day and she ran after him, I knew where she was going and I prayed that she would bring him back home safely. I prayed that she would make him happy. I prayed that someone would protect them out there. I prayed and they came back and I have never known such relief.

After that, it was just him and her.

We were rebuilding Fanelia when she left. They went and got his brother's body and buried it next to his father and the whole country began growing again. The dragons left for the forest. The people came back from Arzas and Irini and everywhere else, even Deadalus. I joined my people, my Fanelians, and I helped them rebuild the city that we loved. I felt like they loved me. And when I saw the blue column of light rise from the memorial I knew she was leaving, and I waved to her so hard that I dropped the buns I'd brought for the carpenters.

Then he came back, picked up a hammer, and started building. And he was our King.

Now I am seventeen and he is nineteen and he still misses her every day. I can tell. He is warmer in his words. He sits in silence for long periods of time until his councilors have to say his name over and over for him to snap out of it. He laughs more and sighs more. He hasn't started to look for a Queen, and I somehow doubt he will for a very long time, if at all. He's lucky he's a man and he can wait to get married, even if it gives the priests hives.

They still talk a lot, him and her. I can hear him from the hallway when I pass by his door. It's like he's talking to himself, but I know she's there somehow and answering him and it somehow makes me happy that they're together, even if they can't touch. The harsh distance he built up in himself when he lost his family is still there in his will and words, but there is a softness around his hard edges that is because of her.

Not because of me.

I'm sorry. I'm jealous. I can't help it. She is going to marry the boy I was going to marry. I still don't hate her, even if I think unkind things when I see him sigh. It's easy to love her like it's easy to love him. And even though it's hard sometimes, maybe how I feel about her and him together is another kind of love.

I think that one day she'll come back and I'll have to live with them being together always. I think of that and something inside me squeezes at my heart and lungs and I don't know whether I should laugh or cry or shout. But I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I love her, and I love him, and I think we can love each other somehow, maybe, if it doesn't hurt too much. I don't know.

It's different with us now, me and him. We are still best friends but I don't leap on him like I used to, or lick his cheek, or cling to his arm everywhere he goes. He's given me responsibilities with the people. I'm the first beast to ever hold power, real power, in any country of Gaea. We still climb to the roof at night and talk, we still laugh together, eat together, and help each other through our pain. When we were children I promised him that I would always be at his side, even if he didn't know what I meant. And I always will.

But I am not going to marry him. I probably never was.

It's night time now and I've wasted ten sheets of paper on this. I'm done with these memories. I'll burn these later at the commemoration feast to celebrate Fanelia's full recovery from the war. Maybe if I wish hard enough Hitomi will see them in her dreams, and she'll know that I love her as much as I love him and that I hope she'll come back someday. She told me once that if I wish something hard enough, it'll come true, not because of God or magic or anything, but because thinking that it will happen instead of not will make me work harder towards my goal. Well, I'm making my wish tonight. I believe that my wish will reach the stars, and that she'll come back to him when she's done "growing up." That she'll come back to us.

He's calling me. It's time to go.


End file.
